DON'T DUMP DIOXIN ON US

Join the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and other environmental organizations in a campaign to protect our health and ban the production of dioxin.

Although dioxin poses a threat to the health of the entire U.S., some communities are subject to even greater exposures and health risks.

Greater Health Risks With Indigenous Peoples
Recent studies have found that Indigenous Peoples are at greater risk for toxic illness due to the lack of an enzyme. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported that Indian tribes may be "at higher risk than average populations due to high wild food consumption, contaminated drinking water sources, high levels of radioactivity found on reservations, and high fish consumption rates." Toxic response syndrome (TRS) remain an invisible epidemic among Indigenous Peoples because it's symptoms often mimic other diseases. The issue of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a growing concern among Indigenous populations.

What Do You Mean It Doesn't Breakdown?
Dioxin is a very stable chemical, resisting natural breakdown processes for extremely long periods of time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the half-life of dioxin in soil, for instance, is 10 to 30 years. Instead of breaking down, even small amounts of dioxin released into the environment, build up to higher and higher levels over time. It accumulates. Polar bears, whales, other animals and people even in the most remote areas carry high dioxin concentrations in their bodies.

Where Does The Dioxin Accumulate?
Dioxin is not soluble in air or water, but are powerfully attracted to fats and oils. As a result, they accumulate in the tissues of living things and multiply in concentrations as they move up the food chain. Thus the levels of dioxins in the bodies of species at the top of the food chain - most importantly Indigenous Peoples who maintain subsistence cultures - are millions of times greater than those in the general environment. More than 90% of our dioxin exposure comes through the food supply - particularly through fish, meats, and dairy products.

Dioxin Impacts Our Women, Elderly, and Children
In many of our traditional Indigenous communities, elders still eat the fatty material of fish which has very high concentrations of dioxin and other contaminates such as mercury. To issue fishery advisories or to demand that elders discontinue their eating practices is still viewed as a form of cultural genocide since the relationship to the fish and the food web is one that is tied to spiritual beliefs and certain teachings. IEN is promoting the prevention of the production of dioxin rather than trying to control it. Because we cannot effectively detoxify our bodies or get rid of dioxins, these chemicals can now be detected in all our organs, with high concentrations in our fat and mother's milk. The only known way to reduce one's body burden of dioxin is through breast feeding. Children bear the highest exposures. Dioxin can cross the placenta, during the most important part of child development. The child is exposed to dioxins that have built up in the mother's body during her life. And mother's milk from U.S. women contains the highest concentrations of all - up to 500 times higher than cow's milk. According to EPA, an average breast feeding infant is subject to daily dioxin doses 20 to 60 times higher than those of an average adult. Again, breastfeeding of children of Indigenous Peoples is a cultural and spiritual value that is part of traditional teachings. Dioxin also impacts the reproductive systems of men lowering sperm count.

Other Impacts
Exposure during fetal or infant development can lead to hormonal changes, birth defects, and reduced growth. More alarming, tiny doses of dioxin can have effects that become obvious only later in life, such as impaired intellectual development, infertility, and other reproductive problems at puberty. Dioxin has also been linked to the risk of endometriosis (uterus-womb), diabetes, and other diseases. Dioxin acts like an "environmental hormone," wreaking havoc on many of the body's natural biochemical processes. When dioxin enters the body it passes through cell membranes and combines with a natural receptor protein that allows dioxin to enter the cell nucleus. Dioxin then interacts with DNA, turning on genes that control many biochemical reactions, such as the synthesis and metabolism of hormones, enzymes, growth factors, and other chemicals. In other words, it changes how our body acts.

Incinerators Burning Chlorine-Containing Wastes
• Trash incinerators
• Hospital waste incinerators
• Hazardous waste incinerators
• Cement kilns burning hazardous wastes
• Sewage sludge incinerators

Bleaching Pulp and Paper with Chlorine
• Pulp and paper mills use chlorine-based bleachers in making paper

PVC Plastic
• Manufacture of PVC
• Incineration of waste from PVC manufacture and products (including open burn dumps, back yard burn and barrel burning)
• Recycling of cars, cables, and other PVC products

Manufacture of Other Chlorinated Chemicals
• Pesticides, solvents, dyes, intermediates, etc.

Other Uses of Chlorine and Organochlorines
• Production of chlorine
• Metallurgical processing and smelting
• Use of chlorinated gasoline additives
• Wood treatment with chlorinated pesticides
• Oil refining and chlorinated catalysts
• Manufacture of inorganic chlorine chemicals
• Water disinfection with Chlorine

• We need a national strategy for zero dioxin, with the clear goal of eliminating - not merely reducing - the formation and release of dioxin.
• Place a moratorium on new dioxin permits.
• Sunset existing permits which would require EPA to revise all existing dioxin permits to include timetables for rapidly reducing and eliminating all dioxin releases.
• Support all Tribal governments to obtain environmental equity in federal grants to develop and implement Tribal environmental protection programs, especially adequate funds for solid waste management.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:


• Educate your community and have your Tribal Council pass a resolution.
  
  
• Contact the EPA that you want a prevention-based zero dioxin program that phases out chlorine-based dioxin sources, particularly incinerators, pulp mills, and PVC plastic.
  
  
• Write to:
  Administrator Mike Leavitt,
  USEPA
  401 M St SW,
  Washington, DC 20460
  http://www.epa.gov/adminweb/leavitt/

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